Was better as horror-romedy than thriller-romance.

I came here to say that I NEVER rewatch a series. Aside from Arang and The Magistrate, not once I have rewatched a show, but after I caught up with the latest episode, I went back and rewatched this show from episode 1 again.

Honestly, just wanted to applaud some key things that I overlooked the first time while being in awe of Rowoon’s height and insane bod (my god he is so delicious but I digress). First, I only love Rowoon in this show as much as I do because Bo Ah’s character made Jang Shin Yu SO much more lovable. Her expressions and little sighs are absolutely adorable. But I can see why she wouldn’t get along with people. She’s dorky AF, in the most adorable but weird and socially awkward kind of manner. I don’t see her doing very well in the basic girl friendship and that’s why I find her loneliness so believable because it also mirror’s Jang Shin Yu’s loneliness and social awkwardness. His halting and holier-than-thou manner of speech is so strange that it would only make sense if Hong Joo was on the same page as him.

I also want to make note of how incredible the soundtrack, the foley and the music design is. I didn’t notice it the first time I watched each episode, but on my re-watch I have to say, this show would not be 50% as effective without the amazing score. Every scene in which Rowoon feels all the feels, I feel it too because of how good the soundtrack is. All the magic in the air is around me too because of how magical the music is.

That being said, also 5000 levels of kudos to director-writer-editor team wow holy crap. They managed to bring out ALL the amazingly weird yet hot-AF-to-watch ticks in Rowoon’s acting. All that teeth gritting, jaw clenching, neck adjusting, close up shots of hands, little eyebrow ticks, hands crawling up his body wow like they really went crazy on making us feel all the sensual and bodily feels while watching Rowoon deal with his curse. I literally felt myself getting hot watching those red hands crawl up his body wtf LOL

ANYWAY, I did not expect this drama to be as good as it is. I know its not done yet, but honestly, I’ve already gotten so much enjoyment out of it, I don’t expect to lower it by many stars, if at all, regardless of how it ends.

Edit//
Okay so it ended. I’m not completely disappointed in the way it went given that this was basically fluff romance but I have to say, the team did a better job with the first half in which it was horror-romance than they did with the second half with a thriller-romance plot because a lot of things unravelled in the last three episodes. For one, MAJOR a disappointment with Shin Yu’s mom’s divorce trajectory. That dad did not deserve the ending they gave him. I did not appreciate that Shin Yu did not once stand up for Hong Joo in front of his dad and in the end Shin Yu resolved it with a shit*y and lame reason that will eventually work against Hong Joo in the long run because his dad will use that reason against her and call it entrapment. His dad is trashy, end of story. I docked a whole star just for how much screen time his dad got in the end. Thriller wise, pretty loosely written but entertaining nonetheless. I came for the horror romance and stayed for the Rowoon visuals ngl. Anyway, 7 stars for keeping me entertained. Would have stayed at 9 had patriarchal bulls**t and useless parental drama not sidelined everything else in the last half of the story.

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So yes, I began watching this for KSH but 2 hours of this director's navel-gazing was hilariously gruelling.

Some of my observations:
• Visually, it was gratuitous and self-serving. There were clear allusions to "deep" metaphors, but none of them were actually related to the plot or pushed it forward. They were just there because navel-gazing.
• Plot-wise, the director was quoted (and very obviously hinting throughout the movie) that reality is subjective, yet the movie retains its temporal quality and follows a chronological format instead of questioning time and space with narrative techniques, it just throws a lot of visuals at you in hopes that METAPHOR!
• Perception is not the same as reality. There are arguments that perception alters reality, but for the most part, the physical world follows a universal truth. If this story WAS entirely in his head, it would be a much more riveting movie than what it turned out to be. How can you challenge reality and exist simultaneously in the physical plane? This movie does not challenge anything. It tried to be art but ended up as a lot of visual polish on narrative turd.
• The acting is pretty good but that's hardly the problem here
• The story itself is not complex. It's extremely simple but made convoluted because INCEPTION!
• Just to be clear, I understood the story - but I did not like it. I thought it was extremely poorly executed and the point it was trying to make contradicted itself in how they actually made it.

EDIT// If you'd like to see a well-executed storyline that uses drug abuse/addiction to alter perception/reality, I suggest the Ep2, Season 4 of Sherlock (with Cumberbatch) and see how well they handle that subject.

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I loved it idc what people are saying

Holy shit. I am SHOOK AF at this show oh my god. It's traversing so many issues with such stunning sincerity I'm really impressed. Obviously this show does not reflect "historically accurate norms" but set against Joseon era, I'm shocked at how well they explore themes of classicism and feminism. Gae Ddong's status as a slave should not afford her any freedom nor power, yet the privilege of power is something she crosses over easily simply by knowing her own self worth. She didn't take power with brutality and violence, she wasn't given power and had to be beholden to someone for the gift of power, Gae Ddong understood that she had it all along. Power is not something you can take, it's something you have. Statesman Yun giving Gae Ddong his daughter's name was a gift of love, not a power play. Meanswhile the King seeks to attach his entire identity and self worth to the idea of a person. Hoon did not believe in love but it was not romance that he had to learn, it was a lesson in being able to care for something even though it might bring you grief and pain. It's such a great way of showing people as their honest selves. Once you strip away imposed roles and the frills, people only just have themselves and how much they love themselves is how much they can love other people.
I also love Statesman Ma's candid acknowledgement of Hoon's inability to know when to stop. I love that he's still trying to "take" power and struggles to keep above his enemies. No one player has all the cards, everyone is just struggling. Gae Ddong is the only one who is free of these plagues. She cursed her misfortune but really, her one thing was to find her brother and now she is free.
They also dip into ideas of gender, class and trauma and I'm like "thank god SOMEBODY did it!" - the way period pieces portray violence is like, nobody ever is affected by it (the actual violence itself, not just losing somebody) and for Young Soo to be the one is just the best.
I love, love LOVE it when characters arcs reflect bigger themes and concepts and their stories are what drives the narrative. Ugh love it so much I want to write a goddamn report about this show.

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I have never watched a more frustrating set of idiots go through so much and learn nothing

Some people have commented that the plot is wafer thin, but really the most frustrating thing about watching 8 episodes of this was watching a huge ensemble of characters make the same mistakes over and over again and learn absolutely nothing. There is no character development arc to speak of, everyone ends in the exact same box they started in. Maybe Myeong In learned to get more ruthless but truly this show was nothing but an 8 hour long boxing fight. I mean nothing wrong with that but at least make the boxers a little more interesting than sexy cardboard cutouts. Or maybe that was the plan, idk.

I guess the action was good. And by action I mean the parts where Gun Woo gets his fists out. The rest was mediocre trauma porn, watching overly buffed guys beat up people with knives and sticks. These specific scenes lingering on for longer than they sit down and actually strategize towards a plan to do something other than drink and eat in random places and celebrate things they haven’t really accomplished.

The MOST frustrating part? Kim Sae Ron dipped out. Like completely. She caused a whole bunch of shit, SHE was the one who started them on that whole road, got lulled into false safety nets constantly while thinking she was badass and then just left with her arc incomplete lmao what a waste of time.

I believe the creators might say that moral of this story might be “good guys always stay good regardless of how tyrannical and brutal the overlord” but over the course of the show, watching ALL the “good guys” take shortcuts, be sloppy and careless, make lazy assumptions and work in extremely ineffective ways, one can safely assume that what they’re really trying to say is “Bad guys are just more hardworking.” Myeong In might have been demented but he covered ALL his bases. He didn’t stop to celebrate victories he didn’t win and he sure as hell didn’t assume that just because he had money and good looks, everything would fall in line for him in life.

By the time the series end Gun Woo says “I’ve really become a bloodhound” — I’m just left speechless. Like, bro. You were hired as a bodyguard and the body you were guarding dipped out. I thought you were on a quest for revenge? When we’re you hunting for money? And like, IS that what they were doing? What does that say about the characters if that was their motivation? My god. Lol. I can’t even.

I’m not even sure how I’m giving this show a 5.5 but I genuinely liked the acting and the visual polish so I guess it was entertaining enough to balance out the sheer frustration of watching weak and old people suffer because no one could get their sh*t together.

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It was okay.

This was confusingly dark but ended up really simplified into a traditionally dichotomous good guy vs bad guy story. It was interesting how they portrayed capitalism and its far-reaching impacts on war, modern slavery and corruption. All that being said, it didn't reaalllly make a stand of any sort. Just a passing glimpse at a bigger picture. Honestly, I think that's what happens when the comedy tag gets attached, but it's better than a vapid, toxic romedy that put the women's movement 20 years behind.

The acting was entertaining and the visuals were nice. Just turn off your brain and enjoy an enjoyable sageuk.

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The actors are impeccable in this movie. What struck me the most was that although it was a slow-paced drama, nothing about it was slow. The internal struggles between the two protagonists and their choices that lay before them provide a really riveting experience, especially set against the lush and vast landscape of Finland and the crowded streets of Seoul. The two main characters never quite align and there is always that tinge of sadness amongst all that sexual tension.

Would I rewatch it? No, but that being said, I don't usually rewatch stuff so my bar for rewatches is quite high. But it's a really good movie if you want to spend two hours watching beautiful cinematography and intensely emotional love (making) scenes. ;>

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I don’t know how to define “chemistry”

I didn’t think the chemistry was lacking. If anything, tbh, the entire first half has SO much sexual tension I thought I was going to faint the first time they kissed. Only to realize they had like SEVEN more episodes to go now that both Sang Eun and JiHo had come into their feelings.

I foresaw a lot of noble idiocy and blubbering melodrama but instead tragically they started backtracking on the credibility and character set up the built for Sang Eun by making her bull shitty triangle with HaeJin take center stage. Honestly, it wouldn’t have been a bad story development had they not made Hae Jin into a brat and Sang Eun into a damsel who couldn’t set up proper boundaries, which all things considered is a regression for Sang Eun. I hated how Hae Jin AND her mother did not listen to her nor respect her choices, constantly trying to undermine her work and make sneak attacks at her self worth.

In the end, it was a typical romcom and their romance was no Gong Yoo x Yoon Eun Hye but honestly through the first half, Ji Ho’s introversion, his little puppy eyes, his pining and longing and his cute face made everything 500x hotter. ESPECIALLY because his social status is technically a position of immense power. It was hot, idc.

Maybe that’s just my type but I’m here for wish fulfilment and I ain’t ashamed to say it was fantastic.

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This drama left a lot of feelings in my heart for all the characters and there were many times I really disliked Shim Bo Ni but ride it out and you'll come out feeling good about everything. I think some people were expecting something really spicy because of the whole 'seduction' arc, but it's really just a good story about Shim Bo Ni overcoming some crippling self-doubt, self-loathing and self-pity to become a better person. There's a lot of amazing (and not so subtle) metaphors re: faith and religion, but I love that it never strays for the original intention, that is to make Shim Bo Ni a better character.

Re-reading some of my comments that I left along the way on each episode revealed to me how good of a job they did with evoking the feels for Shim Bo Ni (and Je Soo Ho) - especially the part where I thought they were toxic for each other and it is only now, after completing the series that I see that it was fully intentional. The side characters had gratifying stories and wrap up really well too. All in all, I 100% recommend this show if you're looking for something heartwarming, feel good and just an overall solid romedy drama.

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